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‘Do not be afraid of speaking up.’ Soccer star Lilian Thuram addresses racism, history and the World Cup

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Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
A Conversation with Lilian Thuram. Lilian Thuram speaks during “A Conversation with Lilian Thuram” held at the Fenway Center.

For Lilian Thuram, a former French professional soccer player and 1998 World Cup champion, history is both the source of racism and a weapon against it. 

After playing professional soccer for 17 years, Thuram, 50, became an accomplished author and social justice activist, establishing the Lilian Thuram Foundation in 2008 to dismantle systemic racism and educate people against discrimination in France and around the world. On Monday, Thuram visited the Fenway Center on Northeastern’s Boston campus to discuss racism and the points he makes in his book, “White Thinking⏤Behind the Mask of Racial Identity, with the university community, as well as students from the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science in Roxbury and Milton public schools.

The conversation was moderated by Régine Jean-Charles, director of Africana studies, dean’s professor of culture and social justice, and professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies in College of Social Sciences and Humanities at Northeastern.

Continue reading at News@Northeastern.

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